









COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




















































fCGV* 


The 




Little Gate 

M.,H. HOWELL 



Q, Ck 

















Copyright, 1930, 

By 

Mary Hopkins Howell 


All rights reserved 




FOOTE & DAVIES CO., ATLANTA 


©CU 26926 



To 


John Livingston Hopkins 















A Request 


I bespeak for the statements of this book 
the same generous hearing you would give 
a friend, who should try to show you some¬ 
thing he held in his heart. 

I ask that you refrain from questioning 
and answering until the whole matter has 
been put before you; and that you do not 
attempt to make these statements fit any 
teaching, or cult, or creed. 

Above all, I ask you to take the book as 
simply as it is written; without transla¬ 
tion into other terms, without private in¬ 
terpretation. 

M. H. H. 

80 Spruce Street, N. E. 

Atlanta. 


t 













PAGE 


I— Three Straws. 11 

II— The Question All Men Ask . 28 

III— An Answer .50 

IV— A Sign-Post and Some Finger 

Prints.70 

V—A Personal Word .... 86 

VI— A Few Home-Truths ... 90 

VII — The Light in the Hills . . 100 






































































































































































































































The 

Little Gate 



























■ 





















Three Straws 

I N going back over the known history of 
mankind we are impressed by the per¬ 
sisting appearance of three characteristics. 

(1) Whatever the people, civilization, 
form of religions belief, order, clique, or 
stratum, each accounted-normal specimen 
of the race possesses an individual stand¬ 
ard of personal morality. Certain acts and 
lines of conduct he himself adjudges un¬ 
worthy of himself and voluntarily refrains 
from them; while certain others he just as 
definitely squares with his own standard, 
and holding them as permissible or admir¬ 
able follows the line of conduct thus indi¬ 
cated. In turn, similarity of standards 
brings about the formation of groups, each 
with its moral code, and the individuals 
constituting the groups operate with a 
sense of personal obligation in connection 
with this group code. 

From first to last the entire action is un¬ 
compelled. The individual code is formu- 


11 


THE LITTLE GATE 


lated by the man himself in answer to the 
demand of his own nature; the group affilia¬ 
tion, together with the individual’s accept¬ 
ance of the law of the group, is wholly op¬ 
tional with him. Nor is this the sum of the 
matter, for we find further that this indi¬ 
vidually evolved code has a general rec¬ 
ognized status never accorded the promul¬ 
gations of deputised law-makers. Through¬ 
out the social structure the man who vio¬ 
lates his own personal standard of mor¬ 
ality is looked at askance; and he who vio¬ 
lates the provisions of the group code, or 
disregards its authority, is outcast from 
his own class. 

It has been said that primitively man is 
unmoral, that his so-called moral sense is 
purely a matter of education, of heredity 
and environment; and it may be that the 
items of his code are determined by tradi¬ 
tion, by association and environing condi¬ 
tions. But even if this be true the vital 
fact remains untouched, unaccounted for: 
—The demand for the code is from the very 


12 




THREE STRAWS 


nature of the man, is met by the man him¬ 
self, and represents his own conception of 
what is due to him and from him individu¬ 
ally, as a man, in his personal relations 
with the world. Clearly we are dealing 
here with something innate, original; not 
dependent upon any factor of birth or 
training, or age of the planet. 

Taking the matter at the last ditch we 
find that throughout the range of human 
society the determining factor in indi¬ 
vidual and group conduct is an individual 
standard of personal morality; the focus¬ 
ing point of that indefinable and most 
potent somewhat known as personal honor. 

(2). Of equal significance is man’s abid¬ 
ing sense of his natural importance, his in¬ 
herent competence. Any one with oppor¬ 
tunity to observe a group of small children 
in unrestrained operation among them¬ 
selves, can testify to the early develop¬ 
ment of this characteristic as motive of 
conduct; while we are all familiar with the 


13 



THE LITTLE GATE 


fact that the mature human does not hesi¬ 
tate to appraise and judge all human con¬ 
duct, singly and collectively, his own in¬ 
cluded. He may have made a thorough-go¬ 
ing mess of his personal affairs of every 
sort, but that does not delay or discourage 
him; he retains unimpaired his firmly 
rooted conviction that he is by nature com¬ 
petent to prescribe for all governmental 
ails, and to bring the perplexities of all 
other men to triumphant issue. 

(3) There is still a third characteristic 
common to all men; it is the awareness of 
a Presence in the universe. There is no 
commonly-agreed-upon name for this Pres¬ 
ence. Each man has his own idea of Its 
origin, nature, and attributes; It is spoken 
of as Law, as Nature, as God, as Fate. But 
whatever the name or title used men recog¬ 
nize, and have always recognized, the pres¬ 
ence of a power and intelligence transcend¬ 
ing the power and intelligence of man; 
whose purpose and movement man is 
powerless to thwart or stay. 


14 



THREE STRAWS 


This faint awareness is the source of all 
our fears, our superstitions, our systems 
of worship; for man does not yet clearly 
recognize the inherent relation of the Pres¬ 
ence to Man and to Nature. Man has con¬ 
ceived of himself and Nature as being in 
some occult way the product of Its will. 
With this as premise he could only go on 
to the conclusion that his continued exist¬ 
ence and the maintenance of his identity 
as a distinct individuality rested with that 
will; and might at any moment, upon any 
occasion, be forfeited through some ig¬ 
norant or deliberate act of his. It be¬ 
hooved man to secure and keep the per¬ 
sonal interest and good-will of this Su¬ 
preme Power. Since the first faint trac¬ 
ings we can find of man it is evident he has 
made this effort. He still makes it. 

But here and there we find one with less 
clouded vision who dimly perceives that 
Life has always been, that It is not a mat¬ 
ter of bestowal. That it is an error pro¬ 
ductive of misery and hopelessness to put 


15 



THE LITTLE GATE 


the emphasis upon the manifestation in¬ 
stead of the That-Which manifesting. That 
the intangible, invisible, imponderable Life 
is the permanent unalterable factor—not 
any shape as which It shows Itself. 

In order to have something quite definite 
and clear-cut to hold in the hand, we might 
call this That-Which a Line of Life. Now 
then: This Line of Life was never created, 
It was, 4 ‘in the beginning”; Its principles 
and potentials those of Life throughout It¬ 
self. One of those principles is Form, and 
this principle of Form is constant though 
the shapes it takes are eternally changing. 
For the purpose of the shape is that Life 
may perform certain functions, may use It¬ 
self in a certain way at a certain place in 
time. 

All the myriad of shapes which the 
given Line of Life takes show a resem¬ 
blance to one another. How could it be 
otherwise? It is the same One Life. There 
is nothing to prevent It from appearing 


16 



THREE STRAWS 


as a stone at one particular place in time, 
as an ape at another, and now as a Yon. 
The order of the appearings grows out of 
the nature of Life Itself, there is no ca¬ 
price or happen-so about it; and it is in this 
way that we have what has been called the 
evolutionary sequence. There has been no 
struggle to perfect Form, which is com¬ 
plete in itself and at no time has taken im¬ 
perfect shape. Perhaps the particular 
form we see at any given time might easily 
be considered a later and improved edition 
of one that came earlier in the line; but 
that earlier form served another end, un¬ 
der other and different conditions. Each 
shape, in turn, has answered perfectly the 
use for which it was intended, the purpose 
of its existence. 

All the phenomenal world tells us the 
true story of Life, tells it in many tongues 
and forms. We have it in entirety, serial¬ 
ly, in bits, in cross-sections. On every side 
it is continually before us; there is no 
dearth of opportunity to learn. 


17 



THE LITTLE GATE 


Take the grain of corn lying in yonr 
hand. It gives no hint of brown roots, of 
green stalk and blade, of husk, of silk. 
But put it into the ground, and wait. 
Presently that which is corn shall evolve 
for you a living picture of the nature of 
corn: in a never varied order the potentials 
of corn-life shall declare as actuals. 

If however you are of those who credit 
Life with a laborious struggling upward— 
from lower imperfect forms to somewhat 
higher imperfect forms, “inching along” 
through uncounted ages toward a yet far 
distant perfection—you will not hear the 
message of the corn: That never once 
throughout the miracle performed did Life 
clamber up, endeavoring a more complete 
expression of Itself. As you see, each 
word of the sentence is complete in itself: 
the stalk is not less perfect than the blade, 
the blade has not given way to a “higher 
form” as the ear. From brown roots to 
crowning glory, in entirety, there has been 
presented to you a full declaration of the 


18 



THREE STRAWS 


nature of corn. Each stage, in its appear¬ 
ing like a revealing word, contributes its 
complete independent perfect share to the 
utterance of the manifesting Life. 

From that declaration no word may be 
omitted; roots, stalk, blade, ear, and the 
gay tassel at the top; it requires them all, 
presented as a wholeness, to tell the true 
story of the evolution of corn. At every 
step of the process the full nature of that 
Life has been operative. The leaf is not 
the output of one part of Its nature, the 
stalk of another. What we have seen is a 
One Thing capable of many modes of mo¬ 
tion using Itself in ways distinct from one 
another, but all to a given end. 

We look into the night sky, and see a 
heaven strewn with stars. We know that 
these we see are as a handful compared 
with the hosts lying out beyond our range 
of vision, our power of computation. Yet 
in the presence of this beginningless, end¬ 
less, boundless Power which the heavens 


19 



THE LITTLE GATE 


declare, we picture poor Life confined to 
our small point in space struggling through 
aeons to—grow toes where were fingers! 

In the general understanding of popular 
teaching, the prevailing theory of evolu¬ 
tion presupposes necessity as giving the 
required impulse toward structural change. 
Necessity caused by failure of complete 
correspondence between the equipment of 
the entity and the conditions of its environ¬ 
ment. The natural inference being that 
the modification of structure everywhere 
evident denotes progress, in the sense of 
improvement, of a nearer approach to per¬ 
fection. 

Life is greater, richer, more competent 
than this theory of the cause of the evolu¬ 
tionary process would indicate. Eventual¬ 
ly we shall find that the Itself of the entity 
is Life, that the Itself of all that consti¬ 
tutes the environment is Life; that there 
has been no failure of correspondence at 
any point, but at every stage and through- 


20 



THREE STRAWS 


out a vast suitability. We shall see that 
the nature of evolution has been misunder¬ 
stood, and consequently the intent and pur¬ 
pose of its operation misinterpreted. 

Let us for a moment suppose that a man 
of methodical mental habits but quite ig¬ 
norant in the matter of elephants should 
suddenly come upon one, and should at 
once proceed to gather facts. Further¬ 
more, suppose him unable to view the 
animal as a whole but forced to examine 
him in sequence. 

Beginning, perhaps, behind the shoulder 
and proceeding toward the rear, he would 
note first a large area with no striking con¬ 
formation, just a tendency to the cylindri¬ 
cal in the upper and lower regions. Then 
would come change of direction from hori¬ 
zontal to vertical, diminution in size, and 
full development of cylindrical tendency. 
This followed by further and very marked 
diminution in size, but retention of general 
shape and direction; followed by sudden 


21 



THE LITTLE GATE 


increase in size, and then a shifting of 
direction to horizontal with greatly in¬ 
creased area. And so on past the shoulder, 
to meet the astounding manifestation of 
head, ear, and trunk. Round and round 
our seeker after facts would go, and find 
an unbroken sequence of phenomena. These 
he would classify, correlate, and sum¬ 
marize. 

Every fact on the list would be an 
elephant fact. But, lacking the vision of 
the whole, would these facts be of any 
value in relation to elephants? Is it not 
possible that whether he should finally ac¬ 
cept the tail as the vanishing point of the 
trunk or the trunk as the full development 
of the tail, might depend on whether our 
seeker after facts started east or west in 
his pursuit of data? 

Absurd, of course. But is it too far re¬ 
moved for reminder of our own way of col¬ 
lecting and classifying the “facts’’ of 
Life? 


22 



THREE STRAWS 


Evolvere. To unfold from within that 
which already is, within. In this sense 
evolution is the universal process of mani¬ 
festation; operative equally in the large¬ 
ness of the whole and in the minutest par¬ 
ticle of the part. Everywhere and always, 
there is evolution. Not the progressing 
improvement of a rough working-model 
but the unfolding of Life from within It¬ 
self ; showing in apprehensible shapes and 
orderly sequence the nature of Its nature. 
And in this evolution man has his natural 
place, both as individual and as race. 

However we may read or misread the 
sequence, the truth remains that no one 
stage of the order is the product of an¬ 
other, or is in any way caused or deter¬ 
mined by the forms that precede and fol¬ 
low it. Simultaneously, at every moment 
of Earth-living, there are present all 
phases of the human manifestation; from 
ape-man, savage, predatory, ruthless, to 
god-man—compassionate, wise, steadfast. 
But never is there gradual shifting of the 


23 



THE LITTLE GATE 


man-race, from ape-shape to man-shape 
from rudimentary man-shape to better 
man-shape, in effort to secure greater 
scope and increased facility of expression 
for man-Life. 

In any instance under observation, 
whether individual or collective, we deal 
not with indeterminate mass but with the 
essential Life quality of Individuality— 
that in Life which ensures continuity of 
type. A given Line of Life, self-existent, 
unlimited, self - directive, may perfectly 
manifest ape potential at one place in time 
and human potential at another. Always 
the manifesting would be complete in it¬ 
self, not a product or effect of what had 
preceded it in time. And always it would 
be consistent. That is, a certain distinc¬ 
tive individuality would mark every mani¬ 
festing of that Line, however dissimilar the 
shapes as which It appeared. If we were 
sufficiently skilled we might correlate ex¬ 
perience, trace the sequence and identify 
the Line, by means of certain characteris- 


24 



THREE STRAWS 


tics appearing in all Its manifestings. In 
much the same way that individualities of 
style will proclaim the identity of a writer 
who had thought to conceal himself behind 
the screen of anonymity. 

Looking back over his present self-con¬ 
scious life the man accustomed to self-ob¬ 
servation will see that his career has con¬ 
sisted of a series of epochs, each as dis¬ 
tinct in itself as if it had been punctuated 
with a birth and a death; the whole series 
centering about a sequence of varied per¬ 
sonalities, each with its own assortment of 
views, standpoints, opinions, beliefs, ideals, 
purposes. Reviewing it as a whole, he will 
be profoundly impressed by the fact that 
through all the shifting, changing spectacle 
one factor remains unchanged; that the 
whole sum of views, opinions, purposes, 
does but represent the operations, the 
modes of motion, of that one unchanging 
factor. He sees that at one given point in 
time he felt and thought thus; at another 
he felt and thought quite differently; but 


25 



THE LITTLE GATE 


throughout it is he that thinks and feels. 
All the feeling and thinking has changed. 
He remains. The same “I” as in the be¬ 
ginning. 

This experience is shared by all think¬ 
ing men. Surely it should be allowed some 
place, some weight, in determining our esti¬ 
mate of the inherent value and import of 
that Line of Life—coming out of the un¬ 
fathomed past, stretching forward into the 
undiscovered future; unbroken, unassaila¬ 
ble. 

These three points: 

1— The regulation of human conduct and 
relationships by individual standards of 
personal morality, originating and estab¬ 
lished within the nature of man, and opera¬ 
tive in his every field of activity. 

2— His innate sense of native superiority 
to his present environment and accustomed 
conduct of life. 

3— His recognition of Supreme Power 
resident in the affairs of the universe. 


26 



THREE STRAAVS 


They are sufficiently arresting when con¬ 
sidered separately; when taken together 
the sum seems to foreshadow an answer to 
the question all men ask. An answer 
that shall justify the effort and failure, the 
hope and faith and achievement, of this 
human experience; when man shall have 
exchanged dim consciousness of the Uni¬ 
versal Presence for certain knowledge 
of It. When he shall have passed from 
the conception of duality and separated 
periods to the realization of unity and con¬ 
tinuity. 


27 



The Question All Men Ask 

Since their earliest movement toward or¬ 
ganized mental activity men have asked it, 
of themselves and of each other. And in 
an old Book it is written that one, ont of 
the depths of his perplexity, asked it even 
of the Supreme.—What is Man? 

All other orders of living declare them¬ 
selves unmistakably to our consciousness; 
we have no difficulty in defining and clas¬ 
sifying them satisfactorily to ourselves. 
But when we attempt this with man we are 
at once confronted with a seeming impasse 
that will test all our resources; unless in¬ 
deed we are willing to list him as the X of 
our known universe and so have done with 
the matter. For we find him with his head 
in the clouds and his feet in the mire; 
capable of sustained heroic self-sacrifice 
together with smallest meannesses; with 
the generosity of gods, demanding pay¬ 
ment of the uttermost farthing; with as- 


28 


THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


pirations that pierce the heavens and in¬ 
stincts rooted in the place of devils. 

What is Man? 

We may not be able at once to answer in 
final terms, but a short review of some com¬ 
monly accepted theories and general be¬ 
liefs should at least help to clarify the con¬ 
text of the question. It is necessary that 
we reach the right answer; man must know 
himself if he is to achieve the end for which 
he is come into this human living. 

We of the western world are rather 
given to a quaint pride in our freedom 
from superstition though superstition 
really enters into the very framework of 
our living; in forms not usually identified 
as superstitions, and which so ramify into 
our scientific and religious beliefs and the 
customs of our daily living that they may 
be termed basic in their functioning. Let 
us consider one or two examples of this 
class. 


29 




THE LITTLE GATE 


In his own mind man always has drawn 
a line of fundamental difference between 
the inmost nature and constitution of that 
which is perceptible by the physical senses, 
and that which is apprehensible through 
other channels of information. Each phe¬ 
nomenon of his self-conscious experience is 
submitted to the test of this distinction, 
and is listed as it falls on the one side or 
the other. In this way we have come by 
the terms spirit and substance, energy and 
matter, divinity and humanity. 

This belief in the dual nature of Life 
touches human living at every point, 
“muddies the waters” of all human rela¬ 
tionships; nothing pertaining to man’s life 
escapes its influence. One of its by-prod¬ 
ucts is the theory of Heredity, of trans¬ 
mission through parent to child of ten¬ 
dencies and peculiarities, mental, moral 
and physical. 

No belief of man takes precedence in 
antiquity and honor of this doctrine of 


30 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


Heredity. From the moment he actually 
commits himself to the adventure of hu¬ 
man living those who furnish the personal 
element of a child’s environment are large¬ 
ly occupied with accounting for him. Every 
wrinkle in his little pink body, the way in 
which he cries, the little aimless pushings 
with his hands, his facial contortions, his 
unsettled scrap of nose, his mouth, his eyes 
—everything is carefully sorted out and 
charged up to the relative who contributed 
it. Not for a moment is his standing as an 
independent self-existing human being rec¬ 
ognized and respected. The treatment is 
continued as he grows. Each pronounced 
characteristic of the unfolding child is 
trailed back to some particular point in 
the available ancestral line, as the point of 
origination. From kleptomania to a Roman 
nose, it seems impossible to regard the ex¬ 
hibitor of the characteristic as responsible 
for the exhibit. 

From whatever angle we approach the 
theory for purpose of examination ulti- 


31 



THE LITTLE GATE 


mately we land in absurdity. In the case 
of Willie’s Roman nose, plainly it was in¬ 
herited from Aunt Jane, who got it from 
her father, who had it from a grand-uncle. 
All perfectly plain sailing so far.—But 
how did grand-uncle come by it? Where, 
where, had the nose a beginning? Un¬ 
avoidably, it Began! But how—?— And 
why that particular nose out of all pos¬ 
sible noses? And why is Reginald Pat¬ 
terson, who has never had an Aunt Jane, 
going about with a nose just like Willie’s? 
And—not to put too fine a point upon it— 
how is it that we find the type in evidence 
all over the world, without remotest refer¬ 
ence to Smith ancestry? 

The subject has its amusing side. One 
sometimes finds a certain relief in looking 
at it in that aspect. It has other aspects 
of exceeding gravity; in implication, in ap¬ 
plication, in result. If man comes into hu¬ 
man; living either misshapen or endowed 
with tendencies and impulses which have 
been transmitted to him by inheritance, 


32 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


then he has but a shadow-claim to the 
highest right, the noblest privilege, of his 
manhood. The right to live a life inherent¬ 
ly his own, of independent thought and 
choice; the privilege of being personally 
responsible for the character of his own 
living. 

To subscribe to the theory of Heredity 
is implicitly to charge that the principle 
of balance, of equilibrium, obviously 
constant in all physical manifestation, 
becomes variable, inconstant, in mental 
and spiritual manifestation. In other 
words, the ultimate Power supreme in all 
elsewhere fails at the point of humanity; 
and man brings with him into this difficult 
human living a burden of defects, not of 
his earning or making. Defects which 
have a trick of developing without any 
conscious fostering of his, often over his 
determined opposition: hampering, defeat¬ 
ing him in his efforts to establish his con¬ 
duct of life at a level that shall command 
his own unreserved respect. We still see 


33 



THE LITTLE GATE 


things in the flat, and we do not always 
recognize this principle of equilibrium at 
sight. When we meet it in vital relation in 
the lives of men we sometimes call it Jus¬ 
tice. But we have not realized that this 
Justice is not an isolated moral principle, 
but is an application, a manner of use in 
daily living, of this same principle of bal¬ 
ance that holds the universe in order with¬ 
in itself. Therefore it is not at once ap¬ 
parent to us that the theory of Heredity is 
irreconcilably inconsistent with the fact of 
an obviously equilibrated universe. 

Family resemblance — mental, moral, 
physical—is often cited in support of the 
heredity claim, and notable instances are 
given of grouped conformity to a given 
type. The resemblance is there for all to 
see, and assuredly it is there as an opera¬ 
tion of Law, but — as what particular 
operation! One wonders: Are those indi¬ 
viduals alike because they come of the 
same line; or do they come of the same line 
because they are alike! And if the 


34 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


“family” explanation really is sufficiently 
comprehensive, what should he done about 
those cases in which striking resemblance 
exists between unrelated individuals ? Then 
too, since we are wondering, we might take 
thought of the occasional man who has ex¬ 
perienced the thrill of looking into the face 
of his own “double,” horn of unrelated 
blood, beyond the family boundary. 

Heredity is Law, or it is not Law. If it 
is Law it is universal in application, un¬ 
varying in action. If it is not Law those 
questions to which we have accepted it as 
answer require other solution. 

If we face the issue squarely, unshrink¬ 
ingly, we find we must align ourselves. 
We must stand with those who hold that 
man is within his own nature competent to 
meet the obligations of personal respon¬ 
sibility, able to attain the heights of com¬ 
plete personal liberty; or we must take our 
place with those who by implication hold 
that at the very spring of the life of man 
lies a fundamental injustice. That he does 


35 



THE LITTLE GATE 


not receive his life fresh and untainted 
from the ultimate source; that he is the 
dregs of many cisterns; that the liar, the 
drunkard, the harlot, are only partially 
responsible composites of those who have 
preceded them ancestrally. That those 
who serve for love’s sake are equally the 
victims of transmitted tendencies. 

But i ‘Heredity” is not the answer! 

From childhood we are familiar with the 
operation of a certain natural law of at¬ 
traction, evidenced in the obvious facts of 
human living. We see the stone fall, the 
filings cling to the magnet, and men group 
themselves according to their kind. And 
after we have our human being safely born 
into the world of human experience we 
look to this law for explanation of the 
social, religious, and business affiliations of 
his life; 4 Tike to like” we say, and “birds 
of a feather. ” We realize that the process 
is not confined to mechanical or mathe¬ 
matical action, but we seem unable to make 


36 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


the rational application in accounting for 
the formation of family groups. Partly, 
perhaps, because in certain instances the 
“kindness” lies deeper than we have seen. 

In Attraction we have the “how,” the 
process by which all natural grouping 
takes place. Its operation may very well 
be termed the universal call and response 
of Intelligence — each thing that is both 
calls and answers. The groupings that 
result are determined by the nature of the 
entities affected, for the shapings of Form 
are accomplished by impulsion not com¬ 
pulsion; the spontaneous movement of the 
combining entities toward a common cen¬ 
ter and each other. 

But Attraction is not the answer. It is 
simply a process. We cannot learn from it 
why a baby gradually emerges from its 
earliest stage, of apparently complete un¬ 
self-consciousness, furnished with distinc¬ 
tive traits and characteristics; nor why 
these may perhaps be modified, or raised 


37 



THE LITTLE GATE 


to exaggeration, but are never wholly 
eradicated or made essentially different by 
any training or discipline. 

The whole puzzling matter of congruous 
and incongruous family grouping, and of 
the individual peculiarities of men, simpli¬ 
fies as our horizon line is pushed back: as 
we begin clearly to see that man does not 
begin at birth; that he comes into this life 
secure in the nature of his own individual 
being, purely himself; that this Earth-life 
experience is not of necessity final in effect 
or fixed in result. 

Law is the unvarying order of procedure 
established in the action of immutable 
Principle. It is not subject to sports and 
exceptions. Because it is unvarying we 
have the phenomena we now ascribe to 
Heredity, but those phenomena are rooted 
in something deeper and wider than the 
blood lines of human kinship. 

If we are to find the road leading out 
from a wilderness of futile human living 


38 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


into the Promised Land, we have first to 
clear a way through the dense growth that 
now hedges us in. A growth of our own 
planting in earlier days of unquestioning 
acceptance of theories concerning the 
origin, meaning, and purpose of human 
life. In this clearing-away process it is 
necessary that we deal unsparingly with 
all we can perceive to he based upon a 
partial, traditional, or sectional, view of 
Life. We cannot hope to understand 
finally and truly until we learn to envision 
the whole as a unity; until we cease to re¬ 
gard the facts of the universe as discon¬ 
nected though perhaps not wholly un¬ 
related phenomena. 

First and last, in all our questing and 
questioning, we have to decide whether 
man is worthy to be classed as a free being 
or must be listed as an automaton. If he 
is an automaton—nothing else makes much 
difference, he may as well be an hereditary 
one. But if we are to admit man to the 
ranks of independent responsible beings 


39 



THE LITTLE GATE 


there first must be found a satisfactory an¬ 
swer to this question: In common fairness, 
can he be expected or required to meet the 
obligations of Personal Responsibility if 
he is subject to the irresponsible function¬ 
ing within himself of qualities and ten¬ 
dencies not original with him, transmitted 
to him by and through other men? 

Each must find the answer for himself. 
But in the end it will appear that the an¬ 
swer is based upon the searcher’s under¬ 
standing and estimate of the fundamental 
Supreme Power of the universe. If that 
Power be restricted, dependent, subject to 
conditions, then—poor Humanity. But if 
in truth It is fundamental and supreme, 
one in intent and purpose, wise in intel¬ 
ligence, mighty in power, we may fearless¬ 
ly repudiate the endless complexities of 
these make-shift doctrines with which we 
have enmeshed ourselves. For Life is of 
the same nature throughout Itself and the 
nature of that Power is also the nature of 
man. 


40 





THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


In its present garb Suggestion, our sec¬ 
ond example, belongs to the nouveau riche 
of the mental life of today. As a move¬ 
ment of popular interest the peak of the 
wave has passed; but it has only subsided, 
sunk back into the life of the people, from 
whence it arose. The accomplished sales¬ 
man who deftly assists the prospective 
purchaser in the task of making up his 
mind, the popular speaker, the influential 
publication, all in some degree rely upon 
it for producing wanted effects. And we 
must not forget that it is still regarded as 
a valuable asset by the medical branch of 
science; that there are institutions ope¬ 
rated with a view to collecting and collat¬ 
ing data obtained through experimental 
use of suggestion, as the remedial agent in 
connection with diseased bodies and ab¬ 
normal personalities. Also, though not 
generally remarked, there remain the many 
mothers who assiduously guard their off¬ 
spring from the shafts of adverse sugges¬ 
tion, and pin their faith to the sure action 


41 



THE LITTLE GATE 


of the other variety in effecting desired 
changes of heart and manners. 

Those many mothers sit at the bedsides 
of their little children, each awaiting the 
coming of the magic moment when the 
child slips from waking into the stream 
of physical unself-consciousness; when the 
mother’s will and judgment may assume 
command of his unintelligent being and, 
by means of patient suggestion made to his 
“sub-conscious mind,” gradually alter the 
direction of his tendencies. So that in¬ 
sensibly to himself the current of his in¬ 
stincts may change, and set toward courage 
rather than cowardice, the liar become a 
lover of truth, the dullard an apt scholar, 
the sickly body a robust one. 

Those who advocate and use this strange 
practice do not consider the theory from 
the standpoint of the nature of Law. Law 
is inexorably Law: continuous in opera¬ 
tion, unvarying in order. They do not ask 
themselves what would result in this uni- 


42 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


verse, if it were really possible for one 
human being to tinker successfully with the 
basic manifestation of another life. Being 
an operation of Law the tinkering would 
be equally effective whatever the object of 
the one who invoked the action of the Law. 
If the wrong tendencies of the individual 
can be altered without conscious effort on 
his part, through the intervention of an¬ 
other, so also may right tendencies be 
altered. And, being Law, the action would 
be as sure of result in other departments 
of Nature as in the human department. 
The overturning by men of all established 
order in the outer world would keep pace 
with the use of the process among them¬ 
selves, for and against each other. It 
seems scarcely an exaggeration to say that 
in the time of one generation the race 
would have destroyed itself. 

This particular use of the process is 
treated here with some regard to detail, as 
being most obviously illustrative. But in 
all its many attributed forms of operation 


43 



THE LITTLE GATE 


—whether it be the suggestion of physical 
environment, or of human association, or 
as the irresistible impulse of transmitted 
tendencies—suggestion, in accepted mean¬ 
ing, is the process of furnishing the sug- 
gestee with a desire and purpose originat¬ 
ing elsewhere than within his natural cen¬ 
ter of inceptive activity. 

After a fashion it is recognized that men 
act only of choice; and Suggestion is sup¬ 
posed to be more subtle in use, more far- 
reaching in result than argument or per¬ 
suasion, in affording a man a change of 
mind. But by the law of the nature of 
Life, nothing lasting in result can be done 
within a man otherwise than through the 
determination of his own choice, his in¬ 
dependent use of his own powers. The 
contrary conclusion can be reached only 
through superficial observation of the na¬ 
ture of Nature, and a misreading of what 
actually occurs in this process of 1 ‘ Sugges¬ 
tion^ so called. A man must choose his 
way himself and walk in it, if he would 


44 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


come to what lies at the end of the road. 
He is by nature a free being, subject to 
nothing but ideas of his own manufacture 
or adoptance, and even then subject by his 
own consent; in virtue of his own inmost 
nature amply provided with means of pro¬ 
tection against the misguided or malicious 
effort of other free beings to shape his 
destiny for him. The one form of sugges¬ 
tion to which he is in any degree open is 
that in which a proposition is submitted to 
him for self-conscious consideration, to be 
accepted or rejected by him as he himself 
elects. And the power concerned lies in 
his Will, in his accepting, or yielding, or 
rejecting. 

In all man’s undertakings skill comes of 
faithful intelligent effort in the use of him¬ 
self, usually from very awkward begin¬ 
nings. This is true of all his occupations 
and pleasures; the art of human living does 
not present us with the one exception. It 
is not possible that mastery may be at¬ 
tained through the effort of another than 


45 



THE LITTLE GATE 


the person to be benefited. Mastery in¬ 
volves intelligent self-direction in the free 
use of one’s own ability. Wherever, how¬ 
ever, you find him, with chisel, or trowel, 
or brush, or pen, the Master is one who 
through trial and experience has become 
familiar with his own resources in relation 
to the end he seeks, and is able to use him¬ 
self with fluency of effort in its accomplish¬ 
ment ; in willed intelligent co-operation 
with his environmental sources of supply. 


Whether self-acknowledged or not, the 
bitterest most driving necessity of man’s 
consciousness is the need to secure a con¬ 
tinuing sense of unity within himself. To 
this end, he must effect an agreement be¬ 
tween his irreducible conviction regarding 
the quality of his nature and the con¬ 
tradictory character of the output, in his 
feeling, thought and act. Or, failing in 
this, he must contrive a passage-way 
whereby he may move to and fro from the 
one side of the discrepancy to the other, 


46 




THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


and so present a semblance of continuity in 
his living. The discrepancy he can neither 
ignore nor deny: it extends, sharp-cut as 
an abyss, through all his conscious ex¬ 
perience. He has feared to face it, feared 
to plumb it; feared to learn with final cer¬ 
tainty whether it is indeed a break, a 
hiatus, or is a cleavage down to the center 
of his being. Like a dogging shadow, there 
follows at his heels the bleak possibility 
that within the chasm lies incontrovertible 
proof that man is two-kind in nature. That 
in virtue of his natural constitution he is 
doomed to unending strife of inner con¬ 
viction and outer act, to unending unavail¬ 
ing effort which he is irresistibly impelled 
ceaselessly to make. 

In a few rare instances courageous souls 
have put the matter to final test; but, 
speaking collectively, man has chosen the 
way of compromise. He has gradually 
brought about the close association of two 
potent but unrelated articles of human 
belief; and we now see Heredity and Sug- 


47 



THE LITTLE GATE 


gestion, together, playing an important 
part as supporting piers of the bridge-like 
structure man has built across the painful 
division in his self-awareness. A struc¬ 
ture which enables him to make shift, to go 
about his living—albeit a little lamely, and 
not without fear. 

The theory of Heredity, of course, had 
its rise in that idea of the early ages that 
man creates his offspring. Even we of 
this day remember when a son referred to 
his father as the “Author” of his being. 
Suggestion is a shoot from an ancient tree, 
of belief in the power of certain magic 
formulae to change the mind of the being 
to whom they are addressed; if uttered 
with sufficient earnestness, and preferably 
in prescribed ritualistic setting. 

The record of the second member of the 
firm is particularly interesting; running 
from shadowy reaches where sacrifices 
were offered to appease the wrath of the 
river-god in time of flood, down to our not- 


48 



THE QUESTION ALL MEN ASK 


so-far-past prayings for rain in seasons of 
protracted drought. And, en route, em¬ 
bracing many odd experiments and prac¬ 
tices ; including attempts by man to change 
his own mind through ‘ 4 suggestions,’ ’ auto 
—and otherwise. 

No device in human thought has within 
itself the power of indefinite persistence, 
and this forced association of Heredity and 
Suggestion has a definite term of duration. 
Soon or late the bridge—with its one end 
secured in a mass of hereditary tendencies, 
and the other anchored in a multitude of 
whispering influences—shall slip from its 
moorings and drift from the sight and 
thought of men. For there is that in the 
nature of Life which makes it forever im¬ 
possible that a man shall shift from his 
own shoulders the responsibility of his own 
conduct of life. And there is that in Life 
which requires that man shall seek the 
Truth of Life until he finds. 


49 



An Answer 


It is impossible to conceive of anything 
prior or primary to Life, as obviously that 
which could cause It to be must of neces¬ 
sity itself be alive. Therefore, in any at¬ 
tempt to learn something definite and 
usable about Life we have to start with the 
plain statement that It is. 

If thereafter, in order to provide our¬ 
selves with a proper beginning point, we 
ask where Life is, the answer is made dif¬ 
ficult of acceptance by our inadequate idea 
of Life. So limited we think It; so 
hampered, and hindered, and fragile. So 
poverty-stricken. Men regard It as a pos¬ 
session, a gift, an inheritance, a thing 
derived. Further, they confuse It with the 
little stretch lying between birth and death. 
They have even gone so far as to look 
upon death as the end of Life. How is it 
possible to make plain a little of the truth 
of Life to one who holds the concept of a 
cold principle of life, operating mathe- 


50 


AN ANSWER 


matically according to certain laws, and 
limited in activity by the nature of its 
vehicle of expression?—-One who really 
believes in dead matter and dead men! 

It is the pronouncement of science that 
all we had considered inert matter is in 
reality in a state of constant, intense, 
ordered activity within itself. Notwith¬ 
standing the weight of such utterance and 
their own surface acceptance of it, men 
continue to regard certain entities as “hav¬ 
ing life” and certain others as being 
“without life.” 

Here again we are confronted by man’s 
habit of seeing all things in the flat. In 
this case we have his idea that the human 
manifestation of Life is the standard of 
measurement, the apex of all-that-is; that 
all roads lead up to US. Missing the big 
point, that Life is essentially, indivisibly, 
one in nature: that we can’t have different 
kinds of Life. There is just Life. The 
persisting line of varying forms—which 


51 




THE LITTLE GATE 


has been called the evolutionary sequence 
—is not Life groping, hesitant, unsure, 
striving to perfect Its product. It is Life 
manifesting Its exhaustless abundance as 
one structural plan susceptible of endless 
modification and distinctive use, and of 
every conceivable application of that plan 
in forms. Man is blood-brother to the ape, 
and to the tree that shelters it; to the 
ground that gives rootage to the tree; to 
the light, and the air, and the rain, and 
the ether. Life is all that is. How should 
it not be that in all Its manifesting It inter¬ 
acts, interdepends, with—upon—Itself? 

Just as we cannot conceive of anything 
prior to Life providing the beginning of 
Life, so we cannot imagine the nothingness 
that would lie out where Life is not. The 
nature of Life makes Its ending as incon¬ 
ceivable as Its beginning, and in answer to 
this first question we can do no more than 
extend our initial statement, saying:— 
There is no place where Life is not: Life 
is, everywhere. 


52 



AN ANSWER 


Again we ask, and this time the question 
is:—What is Life? But simple unity is 
not subject to analysis; we cannot enumer¬ 
ate the component parts of Life. We have 
come into the presence of the Ultimate; 
where in unity, intelligence, and might, 
Life operates; free; without measure or 
apportioning. 

Unity is the state of being indivisibly 
one; and Life is that. Being unity It is 
the same nature throughout, there can be 
no question of quality or degree. That we 
do not see It as unity is due to our belief 
in a duality, of Life and material. We con¬ 
ceive of the livingness of an entity as 
primarily dependent upon a little packet of 
Life hidden somewhere within it, and upon 
the ability of the Life contained in the 
packet to overcome the resistance of Its 
dense vehicle of expression; to defend and 
maintain connection with Its outward 
source of sustenance in the more or less 
actively hostile environment. We do actu¬ 
ally expect an incomplete expression of It- 


53 



THE LITTLE GATE 


self, we are so sure of Its inability to cope 
fully with the cramping conditions under 
which It operates. Also, we definitely 
count upon a time when through a process 
of gradual depletion the content of the 
packet shall reach exhaustion. At that 
point of course the subject ‘‘dies’’—there 
is no other course open to it. 

It is our custom to speak of death and 
Life as of two opposed and conflicting 
forces striving for supremacy. In this we 
totally misconceive the situation. Life and 
death are in no sense at odds with each 
other. Death is no more due to a failure 
of Life than birth is. But because we do 
not realize that Life eternally is, we do not 
perceive that birth and death are but two 
milestones set up on the shining, unending 
road. 

Thus it is that our cherished beliefs 
about the nature and ability of Life—plus 
our firm conviction that nothing can have 
more than one mode of functioning, one 


54 



AN ANSWER 


meaning, that all things in heaven and on 
earth are to be viewed in the flat—prevent 
us from seeing Life as It is. We behold 
only Its image, distorted as we have made 
it in our own thought; and because we do 
not know that Life is unity, unchanging, 
equal to Itself throughout, we mistake our 
rightful place in the natural order. 

In our appraisement of ourself we stand 
with all other manifestation at our feet. 
To us, intelligence is intelligence to the ex¬ 
tent that its processes recognizably ap¬ 
proach the human standard; power is prop¬ 
erly power only as man wields it; unity— 
indivisible completeness — is peculiar to 
man, he alone can say “I.” We consider 
that we conquer environment, subdue Na¬ 
ture, exercise dominion over lower orders. 
And while we thus boast of achievement, 
and congratulate the earth upon the quali¬ 
ty of our intelligence and the excellence of 
our conduct, Nature tends us and fosters 
us; and waits for us to reach the stature 
of that humility which has achieved per- 


55 



THE LITTLE GATE 


ception of the fundamental oneness of the 
universe. 

Man, though not knowing himself in his 
true relation to Life, does dimly sense his 
own quality of unity; therefore he says 
‘ ‘ I am,’ ’ and ‘ 4 1 am not as other men. ’ 1 He 
dimly senses that he is intelligence, and 
says “I think,’’ and, naively, “Hearken 0 
Universe, I think thus.” He senses that 
he is might; therefore he says, “I can, and 
because I desire I will.” —And takes. 

Because he does not know Life as unity, 
because he does not identify Life except as 
Its appearance and modes of motion tally 
with his ideas of It, man has misinter¬ 
preted the interplay of Nature, filled the 
earth with conflict and his own mind with 
unnatural conceptions of his personal rela¬ 
tionships. Unnatural as between man and 
man; unnatural as between Man and Na¬ 
ture; unnatural as between man and the 
Power of the Universe. 


56 



AN ANSWER 


He denies self-awareness in the plant be¬ 
cause it does not salute him in his own 
tongue. He decides against rational self- 
conscious operation in the animal because 
he recognizes only the human mode of 
reasoning — he doesn’t comprehend the 
animal mode of putting two and two to¬ 
gether. He fails to take into his account¬ 
ing the possibility that the utterings of 
Life may be of deeper import, wider mean¬ 
ing, more extended form, than he now un¬ 
derstands; that as yet he has not more 
than touched the fringes of knowledge con¬ 
cerning Life. 

Truth is not a one rigid somewhat; a 
magic formula to be learned, a vision to 
be seen, a proposition to be grasped. From 
time immemorial men have sought Truth; 
some have forsaken family, country, all 
worldly gain and human ties, that they 
might be unhampered in the quest. Some 
suffered cold, and hunger, and loneliness, 
and ostracism; and counted it all as noth¬ 
ing, in their passionate attempts to gain 


57 



THE LITTLE GATE 


this key to a door which they believed 
opened upon a glory of joy inconceivable. 

But Truth is not a key, wherewith to 
open a closed door. And The Little Gate 
requires no key — it stands ever on the 
latch. 

The real nature of a subject, stripped 
down to its actual, innate, inherent, essen¬ 
tial self, is its truth. This, regardless of 
the name of the subject; whether that be a 
social incident, a natural phenomenon, an 
archangel, or the law of the universe. The 
real nature of that subject is the truth of 
it. A child once formulated his meaning of 
the words ‘ ‘ my nature’ ’ thus. ‘ ‘ My nature 
is what makes me what I am.’ * This seems 
to cover the ground. The nature of any¬ 
thing is that which makes it what it is, and 
that ‘‘that-which*’ constitutes the truth of 
it. Truth-forms are forever without num¬ 
ber, but Truth is forever the same; un¬ 
changing, unalterable; always the real na¬ 
ture of the subject is its truth. 


58 



AN ANSWER 


From minutest particle to the system of 
the universe, as we know it, we find at 
every point the trinity of unity, intelli¬ 
gence, might; each aspect distinct from yet 
comprising the other two. Unity requir¬ 
ing both intelligence and might for full ex¬ 
pression of indivisible oneness; intelli¬ 
gence ceasing to be if, conceivably, it were 
deprived of either unity or might; and 
might impotent without unity and free- 
moving intelligence. Each aspect, func¬ 
tion, mode of motion, distinct from the 
other two; and the three inseparably, un¬ 
alterably one. One. Life forever equal to 
Itself in item and sum, without variation 
in quality or competency, without begin¬ 
ning, or ending, or horizon line. 

Perhaps it all may be briefly summed up 
thus:—Life is the real nature of all that 
is; God, Man, the Universe. Man is sick in 
body and mind, largely because being es¬ 
sential unity he persists in trying to oper¬ 
ate as duality. He is unhappy, largely 
because though he is intelligence he images 


59 



THE LITTLE GATE 


himself to himself as having a mind, or 
minds; of given size, grade, and shape, and 
operating more or less automatically, with¬ 
out his conscious control. He feels him¬ 
self at the mercy of chance and circum¬ 
stance; because he does not yet perceive 
that man, being might, is subject to noth¬ 
ing in this universe except ideas of his own 
manufacture or acceptance. — And of all 
his vast collection of ideas none are more 
grotesque than the images he has wrought 
of Life, Its nature and ability. 

The real nature of a subject is its truth. 
The truth of all things is that Life is their 
real nature, that Life is the Itself of 
all that is; that Life moves always as 
unity, intelligence, and might. Indis¬ 
soluble, unalterable, eternal, immeasura¬ 
ble, unthwartable. 


To some minds the word “Unity” 
presents difficulties. To hear that Life is 
all that is, that Life is one, induces within 
them a confusion: they are unable success- 


60 




AN ANSWER 


fully to correlate the idea of the universal 
unity of Life and the idea of persisting in¬ 
dividual consciousness. They have the 
mental figure of a 1 great central undif¬ 
ferentiated Mass, gradually differentiat¬ 
ing itself into the entities of the phe¬ 
nomenal world. And this figure conveys 
to them a sense of impending danger, of 
threat, that as these entities emerged from 
the Mass so, logically, they may return and 
again be merged into it. They recognize 
that a beginning requires an ending, that 
creation involves a definite term of exist¬ 
ence. And the one absolute assurance af¬ 
forded them by the circumstance of man’s 
living is—that he now is. They know that 
he enters, that he departs; that for a space 
between entrance and exit he disports him¬ 
self, and apparently with little permanent 
effect for after his exit he is soon forgot, 
as a living reality. The apprehension that 
not only is he soon forgot but that he soon 
forgets, the possible blotting out of self- 
conscious identity, is one of the reasons we 


61 



THE LITTLE GATE 


cling so desperately to the human phase, 
why the fear of death casts its shadow 
over all our living. 

But Unit-y has nothing to do with merg¬ 
ing; fundamentally it means essential in¬ 
dividuality. Each unit, entity, is itself 
alone; complete, and distinct from all 
other units under the sun, but not dif¬ 
ferent. All, alike, are units. All, alike, 
are unalterably Life, indivisibly Ones. 
There is no primordial Mass into which we 
returning sink, bereft of our Selfhood, for 
Individuality is a Life-quality. And Life 
is not subject to interference or develop¬ 
ment. It is; original; Itself; and of one 
nature throughout. 

Man is driven to think of himself as 
duality by the double-mindedness of his 
own ways, by his self-contradictions of feel¬ 
ing and thinking and doing. It follows 
naturally that he has thought of the Su¬ 
preme Presence as two-kind in nature and 
action; for man does not know God, he 


62 



AN ANSWER 


thinks about God, and his thoughts are 
shaped in human-nature terms. At one 
moment he quails before his own concep¬ 
tion of an angry God, at another he is filled 
with adoration by contemplation of his con¬ 
ception of the quality and extent of the 
love of God. But at all times he finds it 
possible to speak of omniscience and 
omnipotence in the same breath with 
Chance and the power of Heredity. 

Man has allowed himself very little close 
persistent research in this field of inquiry. 
For one thing, he has not been sure that it 
is prudent; indiscreet experiment might 
provoke deific thunders. For another, it 
requires less effort to accept what has been 
handed down, and is handed down, in these 
matters. And besides all this, man has 
always fancied it possible to fill the uneasy 
emptiness of his living with things, or love, 
or power. Until he has convinced himself 
by actual experiment that his need extends 
beyond the limit of any order of personal 
expansion, he will not turn his steps in the 


63 



THE LITTLE GATE 


direction where may be found the perma¬ 
nent peace of a sure knowledge. 

We are very unwilling to face the facts 
concerning our own motives and aims. We 
delude ourselves, thoroughly and consis¬ 
tently. Power, health, position, these are 
what we seek; not the Ultimate. There are 
few who would not shrink from immanent 
revelation and its attendant responsibili¬ 
ties ; we do not really wish to hear that far 
cry of Leave all and follow. 


Human language is stocked with terms 
intended to designate fundamental differ¬ 
ence inherent in the nature of Life; as, 
good and evil, light and darkness, heat and 
cold, divine and human. Undoubtedly dif¬ 
ference exists; fundamental, and evident 
to the most undiscerning. But it does not 
lie in the nature of Life. 

There is Somewhat, universal in its na¬ 
ture and therefore innumerable in aspect. 
It moves; we experience the vibrations of 


64 




AN ANSWER 


that movement and the nature of our re¬ 
sponse to them, and we classify the whole 
as light or darkness. Again it moves after 
a certain fashion, and we say “heat;” it 
moves in a certain other way and we say 
“cold.” But cold is not an established en¬ 
tity; heat is not an established entity. 
These terms are our names for conditions 
induced through certain specific modes of 
motion of this Somewhat. 

Because of our unclear vision, of our 
failure—each for himself—to seek the Ulti¬ 
mate until we find It, we estimate mani¬ 
festing^ as things-in-themselves. We con¬ 
fuse them with that which manifests and 
deal with them as established entities, 
when really what we have in the hand is 
but names, convenient labels for certain 
distinctive modes of motion. 

We have regarded good and evil as con¬ 
stituting a definite problem, concerned 
with two separate and unlike qualities es¬ 
sential in the nature of Life. We have 


65 



THE LITTLE GATE 


puzzled over it for centuries; trying to 
discover the origin of evil, trying to learn 
something basic about its nature and the 
laws governing it; trying to devise some 
scheme for putting good in fixed predomi¬ 
nance over evil in the life of the world. But 
with all our laboring the successful scheme 
has never been forthcoming, nor will be. 
For the reason that neither good nor evil 
is a self-existent entity, operating uni¬ 
versally, independent of the personal mode 
of human living. 

There is a law of Being; a spontaneous 
and unvarying order of procedure, itself 
declarative of the nature of Life. An en¬ 
tity moving after that mode, spontaneous¬ 
ly conforming its living to that order, we 
pronounce “good.” Attempted movement 
not of that character, counter to that un¬ 
varying order, produces results misrepre- 
sentative of the true nature of Life; and 
this attempted unnatural movement, to¬ 
gether with its motive and consequences, 
we call “evil.” Evil because the motive, 


66 



AN ANSWER 


movement, and consequences, are all alike 
unnatural to human living, contrary to the 
mode of motion that is right for human- 
Being. 

Quite simply:—The nature of Life is one 
in kind. The spontaneous flowing forth, 
manifesting, of this inmost nature of all 
things is the natural, the right, mode of 
motion or fashion of living; it is the ful¬ 
filling of the law of Being. One who 
moves in this way, obedient to the law of 
his nature, knows the joy of freedom, of 
unhampered use of himself in his entirety; 
for, having thus become one with the Law, 
he no longer needs the protection of shap¬ 
ing, restraining, boundaries. 

Whether immediate or apparently post¬ 
poned, suffering inevitably follows upon 
the attempt to move in a fashion contrary 
to the natural progression of Life. Fol¬ 
lows because that progression, that for- 
ward-going movement, is itself the mode 
of motion natural to the would-be violator. 
We have thought of suffering as being evil 


67 



THE LITTLE GATE 


in its nature; but in itself suffering is not 
evil. Would it not be a terrifying thing 
if wrong going evoked no warning sign 
from Life? There would be for us no 
place of safety in this universe. Man is 
free to wander if he choose, but he is never 
left to wander without the “Wandering” 
signal: Pain walks beside the path to safe¬ 
guard, to point the way, that he may not 
fail to come at last to his appointed, right¬ 
ful, place. 

We have onty to come out of the region 
of the abstract, to treat the question in an 
everyday manner, in order to see that in 
this matter of good and evil we are not 
dealing primarily with principles of Being, 
but with modes of motion relating to hu¬ 
man living. What do we mean when we 
speak of a good apple? We mean to con¬ 
vey that it is sound, and of the true nature 
of apple life; as evidenced in its form, 
quality, taste. And this holds as true in 
relation to men as in relation to apples. 
When a man is sound in mind and heart, 


68 



AN ANSWER 


when the form, substance, quality and 
taste of his living bear witness to the true 
nature of human Life, we pronounce him 
and his works ‘ ‘ good. ’’ 

Life is single, of one nature, simple. It 
IS; Itself fundamental, essential. Not a 
stream fed by sweet and bitter fountains; 
not a fountain sending forth good and evil 
streams. 


69 



A Sign-Post and Some 
Finger Prints 

It lias been asked why so little is said 
here about God, and of Jesus, the Christ; 
why so much stress is laid upon man, and 
his nature, function, possibilities. 

But enough about God has been taught, 
and spoken, and written. Mankind has no 
need of a more authoritative, explicit, ex¬ 
position of the nature and character of 
God. The clamoring need of humanity at 
this day is to turn from idle speculation 
and discussion, and the following after in¬ 
substantial theories; seriously to set about 
the undertaking of learning to know God— 
and man. This knowledge, this working 
realization of the quality and character of 
Life, can be had in but one way; that is, 
through experience in god-use of himself 
by man. 

God and man are of the same nature. At 
times man spontaneously acts upon this 


70 


A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


truth of himself. At such times personal 
interest and motive are left behind; he 
transcends his customary conduct of liv¬ 
ing, becomes heroic, great—however small 
the occasion. But he has not then trans¬ 
cended himself. He has but risen toward 
his proper status, and for the time partial¬ 
ly experienced himself as real human-Be- 
ing. 

How can a man who is not always sure 
of his own identity—who at times is un¬ 
able to distinguish between himself and his 
own emotings and thinkings—how can he 
know God! And the man who adjudges 
all creatures of non-human forms of body 
and speech to be of orders inferior to him¬ 
self, how can he know God, or himself! 
How lift his eyes in sure knowledge to the 
Ultimate, while he is not yet able to en¬ 
vision Life as one! 

Many claim to know God, to commune 
with God, to experience the assurance of a 
personal tenderness and watchfulness. But 


71 



THE LITTLE GATE 


these stirrings are at best but as the recog¬ 
nition a babe in arms gives its mother and 
itself. They are not to know God; not 
even in the limited way one knows a friend. 

How does one know a friend? How be 
sure beyond the shadow of doubt of that 
friend’s identity, of his character; be able 
to predict his reactions and reflexes ? There 
is much involved in knowing; it is far less 
simple than it looks. And among other 
factors the knowing requires not only the 
knower and the object known, but the train¬ 
ing, the maturity, the skill to know. The 
skill to know. — A man will give years of 
close application, of rigorous discipline, to 
the study of law, of medicine, of any busi¬ 
ness or art or science. This as a matter 
of course: it is recognized that he cannot 
know any of these things instinctively or 
mechanically. Hoes it not seem strange 
that when it comes to this, the greatest 
knowledge of all, he should abandon his 
usual rational methods; put aside his sense 
of proportion, expect instruction to take 


72 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


the place of application and effort, look for 
revelation rather than experience? 

Man has not apprehended the nature of 
the relation between God and man, nor 
more than dimly sensed the nature of Man 
as Man eternally is. Speaking generally, 
those who acknowledge The Presence as 
God regard the relation as that of creator 
and creature. As between God and man, 
God is considered, vaguely, as the source 
of supply, and man—with equal vagueness 
—as the dependent inferior: God complete 
in Himself, receiving nothing from man, 
continually tiding over the needs growing 
out of the broken narrow lines of man’s 
being. 

God is; Man is. They do not stand as 
isolated facts in the universe; nor do they 
stand as creator and thing created. Each 
is vital to the other in a relation established 
in the very nature of Being, resting in the 
immutable unalterable truth that Life their 
nature is one in kind. This is why man 


73 



THE LITTLE GATE 


can never come into self-conscions fullness 
of Life, never reach the full status of man¬ 
hood, while he endeavors to confine his liv¬ 
ing to one order of potential, and that the 
purely personal order. 

It is written that in the time of begin¬ 
nings man was made in the image of God. 
It is unquestionably true that throughout 
man’s history God has figured as a sort of 
glorified reflection of man’s idea of his own 
nature. It is true also that in essential 
quality this, man’s idea of the nature of 
God, has never undergone fundamental 
change. The God who spoke from Sinai 
—“For I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
god, visiting the sins of the fathers upon 
the children unto the third and fourth gen¬ 
eration of them that hate me, and showing 
mercy unto thousands of them that love me 
and keep my commandments ’ ’—is very like 
that later image before which the passion¬ 
ate entreaties of the peoples of Earth were 
poured out, during the term of the World 
War. Prayer for protection of the be- 


74 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


loved, for destruction of enemies, for the 
triumph of national cause, for the wreak¬ 
ing of private vengeance, for salvation, for 

condemnation-No, as yet man knows 

neither God nor himself; he needs in all 
humility to make a beginning. 

As a first step in this new learning he 
should come to an understanding with him¬ 
self as to the kind of Being he would con¬ 
sider fitted by nature to occupy the posi¬ 
tion of Head of this universe; able to satis¬ 
fy the requirements of Relationship, both 
individual and universal. 

In making this first step he should care¬ 
fully avoid taking refuge in current blan¬ 
ket-terms, such as love, mercy, goodness, 
wisdom: those immensities of which we 
speak so glibly with so little knowledge of 
their meaning or scope. In this matter let 
him confine his activities to regions in 
which we feel at home, the use of par¬ 
ticulars, details. If he demand that this 
Being shall be great, let him insist upon 


75 




THE LITTLE GATE 


knowing just how great is “great .’ 1 If he 
require Power, let him not say “Omnip¬ 
otence,” and rest content, but let him go 
out bravely with his little human marker 
and draw a definite line at which the power 
of God may cease and yet leave him a God 
whom he is willing to acknowledge as Su¬ 
preme, under his new standard. A little 
steady hard work at this point, of the sort 
indicated, will bring the worker unexpected 
results. Of one thing he may be sure, he 
cannot require too much; he need not 
fear that his conception will exceed the 
boundaries of God, or of Man. 

Having in this way and in a measure 
first prepared himself, provided himself 
with an intelligible ideal of God, let him 
take up the task of making his own thought 
and feeling conform in kind; applying, 
adapting his ideal to the occasions of his 
own commonplace living, in his own little 
world of personal relationships. This in 
no sense or degree as an imitation of God. 
Never the question—How in these circum- 


76 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


stances would God do this, or that? But 
in that deeper sense of Life functioning in 
character with Itself, whatever the oc¬ 
casion, or figure of manifestation. 

In a sense each man is unique, in a sense 
each does pioneer work. It is not possible 
to meet in general terms the particular 
need of every man. But none will go far 
astray who will accept as a working 
hypothesis the statement that Life is of 
one kind, no more; that the seeming root- 
difference between God and Nature and 
Man is not in Life, but is an illusory effect: 
and who will then proceed to apply the final 
test by means of the simple method just 
outlined.—He shall come into positive first¬ 
hand knowledge concerning the truth of 
these claims. For the “ difference ’ ’ is an 
effect of distortion; produced by faulty 
perspective, by man’s ignorance of the true 
nature of his own nature and of God, and 
his wrong use of his own nature. 

If indeed the nature of God and the na¬ 
ture of man are the same in kind, man’s 


77 



THE LITTLE GATE 


understanding of that nature will unveil 
itself within his personal-self conscious 
recognition, as he steadfastly endeavors to 
apply this his own conception of the nature 
of God in the living of his own personal 
life. It is there and thus a man finds God 
and himself, if at all. 


There is an old story, that once upon a 
time among an obscure and subject people 
there came a man who claimed to have 
been “sent.” He spent the brief term 
of his manhood in carrying a message 
through the land, and this message he en¬ 
deavored to give to any who would hear 
him. Of those whom he approached many 
mocked, others sneered, some threw stones. 
But there were a few who caught a faint 
sound of the meaning of his words, and 
they followed him. 

For the space of three years he walked 
among the people. Teaching, explaining; 
demonstrating that humanity has mistaken 
its nature and place, that by nature man is 


78 




A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


free. So wholly free, with such quality of 
freedom, that in all this universe he him¬ 
self alone can infringe or suspend that 
freedom; that only by his own consent can 
man assume subjection. He showed them 
of the deep unity of Life, the indissoluble, 
indivisible. And he told them of “Faith.” 

Among us, Faith is regarded as a mys¬ 
terious somewhat which upon occasion en¬ 
ables its possessor to exercise a command 
and control of power not always at his dis¬ 
posal, and supposedly of a supernatural 
order. A small amount of this Faith, if 
pure, unmixed, fits its holder for the per¬ 
formance of miracles, extra-natural feats; 
and even when not unalloyed it still is 
potent enough to secure results—though 
more gradual, longer in full manifestation. 

But Faith like Truth is not a “thing.” 

In Life is full Self-awareness; not a 
single phase, but all possible phases. Of 
these, one in man gives rise to a certain 
instinctive use of his own nature, in more 


79 



THE LITTLE GATE 


or less unself-conscious reliance upon the 
immutable nature of all Nature. This in¬ 
stinctive use is based upon an understand¬ 
ing deeper and wider than is self-con¬ 
sciously realized by the man himself, and 
from it comes a self-conscious use which 
takes for granted co-operation, comple¬ 
menting movement of Power not himself. 

Whatever the specific form of Power 
man consciously or unself-consciously calls 
upon, in some degree he has assurance that 
Power is and reliance upon Its response; 
and this assured reliance, with its root in 
the nature of Nature, we call Faith. The 
more Self-conscious his assurance, the 
more realizing his reliance, the more intel¬ 
ligent is man’s call and the more com¬ 
prehensive the result reached. Not that 
the response is measured to fit the demand; 
but the man’s ability to avail himself is 
defined by his own idea of the nature of 
Power, the nature of the situation, the na¬ 
ture of his relation to the whole. 


80 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


There is nothing passive about Faith. 
Men literally live by Faith; but not all men 
realize that this is so. Partly, because see¬ 
ing Faith only in the flat they narrow its 
meaning to the religious aspect; partly, 
because the operation of That in which 
they have faith is so perfect, so constant, 
they do not realize either Its presence or 
movement, are not personally conscious of 
the encompassing support, the ministry. 
But the man who viewing Faith in the flat 
conceives its meaning to he blind belief in 
a to him unproven God, and who totally re¬ 
jects it in his personal-self conscious opera¬ 
tions, he also lives by Faith. 

When he rises in the morning he goes 
about his business with no fear that pres¬ 
ently he may find himself floating off into 
space, topsy-turvy in his relation to this 
planet. He plants his feet firmly on the 
earth, with full confidence in the working 
order of the law of gravitation, of levita¬ 
tion, of navigation, and impels himself in 
the direction of his own determination. 


81 



THE LITTLE GATE 


He industriously exercises this Faith all 
day, and at night completes the record by 
peacefully stretching himself upon a bed 
which he expects to afford him support and 
to remain in fixed position: then, without 
hesitation or withholding, he commits him¬ 
self to a process and condition of which he 
knows nothing at all. Nevertheless, he 
hopes and confidently expects thereby to 
secure respite from the complexities of his 
daily round of personal relationships; that 
with the morning he may rise again, in re¬ 
freshment of spirit and with increased 
lucidity of intellect. 

All his experiences, however diverse in 
character and unlike in manner, have one 
feature in common:—The success of his 
every undertaking in every department of 
his being hinges upon the sure action of a 
Somewhat not himself and he relies upon 
Its unvarying operation, despite his formal 
repudiation of Faith. Furthermore, This 
upon which he bases every movement of his 
life is not open to any material test he can 


82 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


apply. It is to him invisible, impondera¬ 
ble, silent. But always, in every transac¬ 
tion, he is sensible that lying out beyond 
his jurisdiction and the part that is evi¬ 
dently his concern, is a greater part which 
is not for man to do—and he relies. As a 
rule he accepts his benefits without self- 
conscious recognition or appreciation or 
acknowledgment — being occupied with 
other and less visionary matters. It comes 
to this, however: All that is achieved or 
accomplished by the brain and hand of man 
is made possible through the unalterable 
relation that exists between man and this 
Greatness. 

Though not primarily the result of rea¬ 
soning in the end Faith is always rea¬ 
sonable ; and always it is intelligent, wheth¬ 
er instinctive or volitional in action. Man 
knows more than he realizes. His assured 
expectance that out of the Undefined there 
shall come to pass a something which now 
is not, and his action based upon that as¬ 
sured sense, are tokens of a knowledge in- 


83 



THE LITTLE GATE 


natc in all things, of whatever manifest 
form. 

We have considered but one phase of 
Faith—man’s instinctive use of his scarce¬ 
ly recognized perception of the truth of all 
living. But Faith is as universal in its 
nature and as varied in manifestation as 
is the Self-realization of Life; and in rela¬ 
tion to humanity the Messenger spoke of 
another phase and another order of living. 
Of this the essence is not an unformulated 
perception but an abiding realization, of 
the essential unity of the universe, of the 
indivisible oneness of Life. The first, in¬ 
stinctive Faith, brings courage, confidence 
in action. The second brings clear vision; 
one who has come thus far travels without 
fear. 

The exercise of Faith consists in the use 
of right means to the desired end, whether 
by instinct or by conscious intent; the 
justification, confirmation of Faith, is af¬ 
forded not by proposition or argument but 


84 



A SIGN-POST AND SOME FINGER PRINTS 


by the event. The triumph of Faith, how¬ 
ever, is established by persisting disregard 
of the clamor of sense and accustomed ac¬ 
tion as governors of conduct. It is, to fol¬ 
low the clear shining of all we have learned 
to perceive as the real nature of Life. De¬ 
fusing to be moved by the shadow-dance of 
incessantly changing conditions and sur¬ 
face appearings; remembering always the 
nature of shadows — that they are the 
darkened images of bodies that have come 
between us and the Light. 


85 



A Personal Word 

There is no root-sonrce of evil inherent 
in this universe, its nature is rightness. 
Nevertheless there is sin; the effort to 
transgress the law of Life, of unity, the in¬ 
divisible oneness of the universe. There 
is evil; the misappliance and prostitution 
of man’s opportunity to the gaining of 
purely personal ends. 

The nature of man is universal in kind. 
He is not limited to one mode of motion, 
the performance of one function only; he 
is both personal and impersonal in use. 
Life, his nature, acts always in fullness; 
therefore when he attempts to use himself 
in part only, to confine his operations 
to the furthering of private, personal 
ends, trouble necessarily ensues—not big 
enough; too restricted in movement, too 
narrow in scope. His attempted partial 
use of his nature is mistaken use; his at¬ 
tempted use to indrawing personal ends is 
wrong use. The fullness of Life is his; he 


86 


A PERSONAL WORD 


must use himself in fullness if he would 
know the unquenchable joy of freedom. 

Whatever may he the terms of your con¬ 
ception of the Supreme Power Its nature 
remains unchanged, unaffected: as by all 
the conceptions of other men through the 
ages in which they have interpreted it, each 
in the terms of his own ideal. However 
peculiar their lines of approach, however 
eccentric their points of departure, how¬ 
ever diverse the conclusions they have 
reached, they have been powerless to 
modify or alter that nature. “From ever¬ 
lasting to everlasting , 9 9 it remains. 

Our glimpses of it are fragmentary and 
unclear, but one fact in this connection has 
established itself as beyond rational ques¬ 
tioning. This truth concerning the nature 
of that nature, may be stated very simply 
thus:—God does not keep books. 

It is man who keeps books, who says 
“Pay me what thou owest.” It is man who 


87 



THE LITTLE GATE 


stands behind a ledger and requires full 
personal satisfaction of all past transac¬ 
tions before the account may be closed. It 
is man who would collect the pound of 
flesh, who may be appeased only by the suf¬ 
ferings of the debtor; sufferings which 
total an amount equal to that of the debt 
incurred. It is man who says “I forgive 
him; but I hope he may some day realize 
the enormity of his offense and the extent 
of the suffering he has caused.” 

Surely, surely, he who has the wit to read 
the word aright can see that after all 
these thousands of years of man’s sinning 
against God the sun still shines upon the 
just and the unjust, the rain still falls upon 
the evil and the good, alike. 

Man says— 44 Pay!” God says—“Cease 
from evil.” 

There shall be an accounting — never 
doubt it. The way of the transgressor is 
hard—you shall know that it is so. 


88 



A PERSONAL WORD 


But the affair is not commercial in 
character; so much suffering for so much 
sinning and then, perhaps, receipt of pay¬ 
ment. The reason of the accounting, of the 
depth and height of the suffering, lies in 
the nature of Life; and therefore it is un- 
escapable. 


89 



A Few Home-Truths 


The claim is often made that men swoon 
and perish of thirst in the desert of human 
life for need of a further revealing of the 
Truth, for a cup of the living water; that 
humanity gropes, fumbling in dim twilight, 
crying out for full vision of the day so long 
delayed. But does the story of man’s en¬ 
deavors and achievements bear out this 
claim ? 

It cannot be said that man is static; that 
unswerving pursuit of definite ends is rare 
among us. And thus far in the story men 
have shown themselves fully equal to the 
accomplishing of their most daring and 
visionary undertakings. They have ex¬ 
plored and exploited the earth and sea and 
sky, and now they invade the ether: these 
facts are a matter of history. 

How then are we to judge man’s meagre 
store of actual knowledge of the nature of 
Life, except as indicatory of a less urgent 
sense of need, of a less keen desire? Does 


90 


A FEW HOME-TRUTHS 


the record show that men are so driven by 
an insatiable thirst for Truth that they 
gather together their forces of body and 
mind, and set forth with unrelenting deter¬ 
mination to lay hold on it? -As they 

have set forth and laid hold on other 
things, in other fields of human essaying? 

Power, ease, fame, happiness men have 
sought, and found: and whenever they shall 
seek the final satisfying truth of Life with 
undivided purpose and power of desire 
they shall find that also. But the record 
compiled by man makes it very plain that 
the race does not yet seek Truth after that 
fashion, and because of an inner sense of 
need that will not be denied. 

Man has sought and found, but with all 
his effort and findings he has not found 
satisfaction; nor joy. Why? Because no 
goal of his endeavor has been wholly 
worthy of him; has been great enough, 
comprehensive enough, to engage the en¬ 
tire resources of his nature. His ends have 


91 



THE LITTLE GATE 


been the too-small ends of a shadow-self; 
that central figure of the dream man 
dreams of himself as wholly human-being, 
a John, or Robert, or Mary, or Martha. 
The dream in which he ignorantly tries to 
confine the movement of the beginningless 
endless One Thing that he is, to the narrow 
requirements of human boundaries of liv¬ 
ing. 

What is Man? Are we any nearer the 
answer than when we turned the first leaf 
of our book? 

In one sense there is no answer, it is not 
possible to account for self-existent Being. 
But answers of a sort may be given, as:— 
The human-man is a focalizing center as 
which Being operates in Earth-relation- 
ships. There is however but one answer 
that meets in full every demand of our na¬ 
ture, and it is not an answer in the ordi¬ 
nary sense, but a discovery. Each man 
makes it for himself; and thereafter he has 
a point of rest, of assurance which is se¬ 
cure. 


92 



A FEW HOME-TRUTHS 


Considered as a separate detached prop¬ 
osition, man is an affair of extremely 
small importance. He only represents 
Man, as the leaf represents the plant; es¬ 
sential in, necessary to, but of lasting im¬ 
port only in natural right relation to the 
appearing Life. Human living is built 
upon ideas. Man does not know himself 
but he thinks about himself: as a product 
of creation, or of evolution or of necessity: 
as shapen by heredity, limited by environ¬ 
ment, bound by circumstance, pitted in a 
life-long campaign against hostile odds. 

But unless these things are true in them¬ 
selves all our clouded thinking cannot make 
them true. When we can envision it with 
quiet unprejudiced regard we shall no 
longer see this Earth and human-living as 
a battlefield and war of extermination, but 
as a length of space and time with every 
favoring condition, in which to establish 
an order of Self-awareness that shall not 
fluctuate nor fail. 


93 



THE LITTLE GATE 


In connection with some subjects, some 
operations of Life, words are but clumsy 
make-shifts. For when we speak about a 
subject we have to make sure only of the 
accuracy, measurement, and fitness of the 
terms we use; but when we attempt to con¬ 
vey the thing itself we find the container, 
speech, not sufficiently ethereal to confine 
the content. The inmost essence escapes 
through the body of the heavy vessel. It 
may be, though, that a homely illustration 
can be made to serve here as a sort of 
signal-light in the matter of continuous 
Self-awareness: A physician goes among 
his patients as The Doctor. As this they 
look at him, think of him, speak of him. 
And he is the doctor. Also—and in the 
same sense—he is son, father, brother, hus¬ 
band, friend, citizen. No one of these 
multiple presentations of him interferes 
with the functioning of any other; nor does 
the presentation predominantly active at 
any given moment affect his awareness of 
himself in all his other aspects. He knows 


94 



A FEW HOME-TRUTHS 


himself as doctor, and at the same moment 
his is self-consciously all these quite other 
be-ings. Without confusion he is one 
identity functioning in many capacities, 
continuously aware of himself in all his 
various relationships with their require¬ 
ment of distinctive lines of conduct. A 
homely illustration; but the clue, if fol¬ 
lowed to the end, will lead to a clear under¬ 
standing of continuous Self-awareness. 

We have known men who made swift 
and radical change in the conduct of their 
living, almost as if in response to altera¬ 
tion of their essential nature. But the 
essential nature of man is unalterable. Be¬ 
ing Life, and free to choose, he may experi¬ 
ment in living; trying for himself what 
manner of use is possible to him and how 
far a given experiment may be carried. He 
may choose to move erratically; he may 
elect to operate in accordance with the 
natural order of himself and the universe; 
he may of set purpose revolutionize the 


95 



THE LITTLE GATE 


character of his feeling and thinking and 
acting. But whatever the quality of his 
accomplishment, however deeply interior 
and permanent the change he may have 
brought about, the essential individuality 
that he is remains unaltered: the change 
is one of mode, the way in which he uses 
himself. 

Uses himself—It does not wholly convey 
the nature of the process, or its result. A 
bird in flight, beautiful swimming, lovely 
dancing — The bird, the swimmer, the 
dancer, do not use themselves in the sense 
of implement or instrument or mechanism. 
The bird flies, the swimmer swims, the 
dancer dances! It is entire, spontaneous 
movement of a One-Thing, all together, 
body soul and spirit: It wills; the moving 
is the will-ing. 

“Will” is a term of conspicuous figure 
in the vocabulary of our day; the word is 
in constant use but seems to be without 
specific accepted meaning among its users. 
We hear of strong wills and weak wills and 


96 



A FEW HOME-TRUTHS 


no wills at all; but usually if one insists 
upon a formulated negotiable definition of 
Will signals of distress are shown, fol¬ 
lowed shortly by retreat to the protection 
of less tenuous subjects of conversation. 
As a safe generalization however, it may 
be said that Will is popularly regarded as 
a device of Nature’s for releasing energy 
—a sort of push-button. 

But Life is not an affair of push-buttons, 
and the truth in this matter of Will is that 
wherever Life is there is Will also, and 
without degree. The intent and purpose 
of Life moving in original might to self- 
determined ends, is Will; and, while self- 
elected self-impelled movement may be 
marked by this or that degree of force, in 
the last analysis “a weak Will” is merely 
a grotesque arrangement of words. 

Man moves only of his own choosing, but 
he does not always choose with his own 
entire self-conscious consent. He cannot 
be said to move with full intent and clear 


97 



THE LITTLE GATE 


purpose when with his head he selects a 
purpose but gives to its accomplishment 
the indifferent assent or grudging acquies¬ 
cence of his heart; nor when he chooses 
not to choose — these modes produce the 
unrhythmic movements we attribute to a 
weak will. Life is the nature of all that 
is. No man goes so far or falls so low as to 
lose the nature of his nature. At times we 
have stirring demonstration of this truth: 
as when some human derelict, suddenly 
faced by urgent emergency, rises up and in 
the power of his essential manhood does 
deeds worthy of our high calling as human- 
Being. The root-source of our ailment lies 
deep; but it is not deficient Will or defec¬ 
tive Will, nor any other lack or failure of 
our nature. 

The concentering of the individual’s 
forces in intelligent effort to bring his in¬ 
tent to pass, constitutes Purpose: the in¬ 
tent and purpose of Life moving in original 
might to self-determined ends, is Will. 
When man goes forth to conquer this is the 


98 



A FEW HOME-TRUTHS 


manner of his going. The self-determined 
end may be great or small, noble or ig¬ 
noble, angelic or diabolic; the field of op¬ 
eration may lie within or without, at home 
or abroad; but it is after this fashion that 
men make war, clear wildernesses, build 
cathedrals, invent incandescent lamps, 
achieve Self-mastery. In other words, 
Life, using Itself according to the nature 
of Its nature, with intent and purpose 
moves in original might to ends of Its own 
choosing. 

Obviously, successful accomplishment of 
any sort or degree requires Purpose. But 
scrap-purposes bring small successes. The 
man who would touch full measure must 
choose him a trunk-purpose, clear and con¬ 
stant. One that will satisfy his known de¬ 
mands of Life, and be of such nature that 
all the occasions of his living may be made 
contributory to it. Then indeed, as a 
wholeness, with full free sweep forward 
he shall move in original might to ends of 
his own choosing. 


99 



The Light in the Hills 

The nature of Life is one in kind; there¬ 
fore we may reasonably expect certain 
characteristics to be exhibited, certain 
processes to be in operation, whatever the 
distinctive shape appearing, whatever the 
particular end being served; this without 
exception. And when we turn to our great 
textbook the phenomenal world, for au¬ 
thoritative statement upon this point, we 
find our expectancy become experience. Re¬ 
gardless of the “kingdom” to which the 
entity belongs, and whether we look at it 
in the whole or at the distinctive forms of 
its unity as they appear in the order of 
their unfolding, we find the one evolution¬ 
ary principle, method, and purpose in ac¬ 
tion, throughout. We witness the coming 
forth of a sequence of forms; each adapted 
to some particular use, each a distinctive 
feature essential to full portrayal of the 
evolving entity. Roots, stalk, leaf—in the 
forming out of each member of a plant 
body there is operative the same process 


100 


THE LIGHT IN THE HILLS 


that finally presents the entire plant as a 
unity. And as the leaf or stalk is a token 
of the nature of that which is appearing in 
form, so human-being marks a step in the 
process of manifesting the full nature of 
Man. It is Life engaged in the process of 
making the invisible visible. The Illimita¬ 
ble—having assumed limitation—uses the 
time-and-space field of distance for ex¬ 
pressing Its nature in terms of relativity. 

As we have traveled these pages to¬ 
gether we have passed at intervals some 
questions, like sign-posts with outstretched 
arms by the roadside. For a moment be¬ 
fore we bid each other good speed let us re¬ 
call those questions: 

1— What is the source of man’s inborn 
requirement of an individual standard of 
personal morality; a standard which in his 
regard takes precedence of any official code 
of laws? 

2— Why does his conviction of his na¬ 
tural quality and ability persist untouched, 


101 



THE LITTLE GATE 


however complete his failure to administer 
his own affairs with wisdom? 

3— Why is he, universally, sensible of a 
presiding Presence in the universe? 

4— What is the secret of his stable recog¬ 
nition of himself as a certain particular in¬ 
dividual: stable through all the varying 
stages of his evolution as human-being: 
stable through the flood of exigencies 
emergencies and kaleidoscopic changes 
that makes up the years of his daily liv¬ 
ing? 

At first glance the questions may appear 
unrelated; but a more intent reading dis¬ 
closes that they are as so many fingers, 
pointing to the one answer that Man is in¬ 
finitely more than this man-creature we 
have perched a-top as the supreme achieve¬ 
ment of Life. Man is not a product of 
creation, or of evolution. Neither is he a 
wretched “part” snipped off from Being, 
with a divine spark tucked away within 
him to act as guide, judge, and comforter, 


102 



THE LIGHT IN THE HILLS 


in his wanderings through the maze of this- 
world experience. Eternal, immemorial, 
free, he moves as he will to the goal of his 
desire. Never by compulsion of hereditary 
taint, never by impulsion of response to an 
ordained destiny, never by admixture of 
alien elements. Whether he moves with the 
universe, right, or endeavors a cross-move¬ 
ment of his own devising, he moves or re¬ 
frains in unity, intelligence, and might; by 
right use or by wrong use of his own abili¬ 
ty and nature. While he confuses identity 
with mode and function—thinks the “ doc¬ 
tor” the “son” is himself in full; that he 
is good, that he is bad, that living is Life— 
he walks in a mist. Undiscerning, unsure 
of anything and all things; not certainly 
knowing what is irrevocably and uncom¬ 
promisingly right or true or best in hu¬ 
man conduct; stumblingly, awkwardly, he 
goes. 

But he goes! For all his distorted views 
and mistaken bases of action leave the 
fundamentals of his life undisturbed. No 


103 



THE LITTLE GATE 


misguided course of his can alter the eter¬ 
nal truth of Man. 

Nothing, however, except intelligible 
personal experience ever brings continuing 
realization of this truth; nor of this other 
vital knowledge, that only in and through 
the processes of labor does man fit himself 
to grasp the value of that for which he 
labors. Truth lies at the heart of things, 
not at the bottom of a well to be had for the 
dipping-up; and that which is at once the 
source and fulfillment of all man’s labor- 
ings is held inviolate within the nature of 
man himself. 

The narrow round of human living, with 
its sharply defined areas of personal rela¬ 
tionship, does not show us the Life of man; 
it shows us only a segment of his living. 
For as long as we are content to make our 
human aspect and its inherited traditions 
the very foundation of our living, we shall 
not know Man. Nor shall we know Life 
until we put aside plummet and scale, till 


104 



THE LIGHT IN THE HILLS 


we cease from the spinning of theories; till 
we set ourselves to find that Original 
Potency which is great enough and simple 
enough to hold within Its unity the wrong 
and grief and ecstacy of this teeming 
world, and to maintain in adjustment the 
spreading multitude of worlds we peer at 
from the windows of our Earth-living. 

At this point the faint-hearted turn back. 
They have come to The Little Gate, and he 
who lifts the latch and passes through must 
of his own will-ing disencumber himself of 
accustomed and valued impedimenta — 
cherished beliefs, and convictions, and 
traditions. He can no longer be hampered 
with their clumsy weight for the foot-path 
beyond the gate leads up, into the hills. 

We are Sons of the House. Ours the in¬ 
alienable prerogatives and privileges of 
the relationship. It is for us to choose 
what manner of purpose our living shall 
serve, and to determine the quality of that 
living. Whether we shall be as slaves, 


105 



THE LITTLE GATE 


bound and driven by circumstance; or as 
hirelings, earning the scanty wages of a 
calculated service. Or as true sons, mind¬ 
ful of the honour of the Name, bearing full 
upon our shoulders the responsibility of 
our living; each in his own person the 
visible sign of the invisible spirit of the 
Line. 


106 






















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